Team T&T Out Of The 'Race'
The brother and sister team from Gary, Ind., came out all wet and made an early exit Wednesday night on "The Amazing Race."
A frustrating episode in blue Caribbean waters proved the un-doing of Tramel and Talicia, who told The Early Show Thursday about what went wrong.
"I'm proud of my sister. Because we were able to do it together. And even though we didn't persevere to the end, we persevered to our end," said Tramel Wednesday night on The Amazing Race.
Tramel and Talicia's undoing was repeatedly capsizing a wave-runner in water challenge near Cancun.
"That's her fault," said Tramel, pointing to Talicia.
"Who was the one that was reaching for the clues," Talicia replied asking Early Show's Julie Chen's for evidence. "Roll the clip back. In fact, you rolled it like 30 times I see," she noted, and followed to make her case.
"Who was the one reaching? You know, you have a balance problem, you know, gee, don't rock the boat. But who's the one rocking the boat?" she asked.
Nicknamed T 'n' T (because they say they're "explosive"), they were among four teams that had been trailing a larger group by many hours.
"It really all went downhill at the marina. When we were on that wave runner
we had all types of problems, all types of problems. Couldn't stay out of the water. It was just so many problems," explained Tramel.
"We had clue issues," added Talicia. Ian and Terri had accidentally run over the buoy with their wave runner and submerged T&T's clue. Producers had to replace it. And that was not all, the team also got lost driving to the pit stop. So why didn't they take the fast-forward like the twins?
"Because from our standpoint, if we were in the back with around four other teams, we were still in pretty good standing. The twins went for the fast-forward because they probably had to," explained Tramel. Both women said that, unlike the twins, they were not in last places and they felt they still had other options.
"Because what you didn't see was, we caught up a lot of times. What you didn't see was, as Terry and Ian and Dennis and Andrew were coming down off the pyramid, we had caught up to them. We were going up the pyramid," said Talicia. "By the time we got to the bus station, we had passed several teams. And if there was a bus to go out at that particular time, we would have passed several teams. So we had a lot of opportunities where we were catching up with groups, and so we weren't really worried, as long as we stayed with the pack."
This competitive brother and sister team had said that with Tramel's intuition and Talicia's street smarts they were going to win. That didn't happen, but they did get to taste the feeling of victory in the previous episode.
"We knew we were out," said Talicia. So when show host Phil Keoghan told them they were still in the game, the siblings were surprised. They celebrated with screams and a particular dance.
"That's my chicken dance of delight," said Tramel.
"That's the dance that we were going to do as we crossed the finish line first," added Talicia.
So now that they are out, what do they think of the other teams? In particular, Chen asked them about Heather and Eve. The Harvard girls battled for the critical last seat on a bus in Mexico by making a scene, crying.
"Hey, well, you know, they do what works best for them and what works best for them, you know, was that. That's not exactly our style of play. You know, we tend to have like a little more fun, and you know, we tend to be a little more jokey like. And as you can see, that's why we are now eliminated," said Talicia.
"A lot of teams, they have their own little style, try to play to win. Their own little way. And you can't fault them with using what works for them," said Tramel.
So do they wish they had practiced some of those tactics?
"No. Like I said, not our style," said Talicia.
"Maybe," said Tramel.
Once again Tricia and Tramel were squabbling like siblings.
Talicia, 29, now lives in Los Angeles and works as an assistant to a sports agent, while Tramel, 22, is a senior at Indiana University.